This invention relates to an ultrasound diagnosis apparatus. More specifically, this invention relates to an ultrasound diagnosis apparatus for obtaining an ultrasound image of a patient using an ultrasound contrast agent.
An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus, which obtains a tomographic image of soft tissues of a living body using echo signals, is one of the most popular applications of ultrasound technique in medical use. This technique has great advantages because of its non-invasiveness, non X-ray dosing or real-time imaging, etc., comparing to other diagnosis apparatuses such as an X-ray apparatus, an X-ray CT, a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus or a nuclear medicine apparatus. Therefore, it is broadly used in circulation system, urological or gynecological departments in a hospital. Especially, it is greatly useful in displaying motion of a heart or a fetus.
Recently, a new examination method of blood movement using a contrast agent injected from a vein has been offered. Because of less-invasiveness, it is becoming popular. The examination includes monitoring variations of a distribution of the contrast agent, or obtaining a delay time of the contrast agent from injection to reaching a region of interest (ROI) and a time-density curve (TDC) representing a variation of brightness in the ROI. Information of the contrast agent used, such as a name, density (mg/ml), injected volume (ml), injection speed (ml/sec) and injection position of the patient is significant and filled in a specific form by an operator.
However, it is inconvenient to fill the information in the form by hand-writing. Further, although it is possible to input the information from a keyboard and display on a screen in a conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, it may take a long time to input and is also inconvenient.